


Post-Industrial

by makeit_takeit



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Penguins Captain Evgeni Malkin, Personal Growth, Sidney Crosby is Not a Hockey Player, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeit_takeit/pseuds/makeit_takeit
Summary: Malkin’s table stays until closing time, still lingering over that bottle of Beluga when Sid comes out of the kitchen to start his nightly closing routine. He goes through the same checklist of jobs he does every night after the kitchen closes but before the bar does, tries to keep his mind on the tasks at hand, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice Malkin’s gaze tracking his movements, if he pretended that he can’t feel the heat of Malkin’s eyes on him as he moves around behind the bar. Sid tells himself to keep his head down, but when he does look up, just to test his theory, Malkin doesn’t even bother to look away, just holds Sid’s gaze, direct and unblinking with just the tiniest hint of a smile.The thing is, Sid’s notoriously bad at this stuff. He’s never had any working gaydar that he’s aware of, and he’s been wrong – very wrong – about this kind of thing probably more often, in his life, than he’s been right.So he assures himself this is just another one of those occasions where he’s definitely reading something incorrectly, imagining things, because there’s no way the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is, whatever –checking him out.That would be ridiculous.





	Post-Industrial

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to Geno! And Happy _I Published Something for July_ to me!
> 
> This fic is made of:
> 
> One part: an episode of _Best Thing I Ever Ate_, wherein they talked about the Smoked Potatoes from [Superior Motors](https://www.superiormotors15104.com/) in Braddock, PA. They also talked about the concept and mission of the restaurant, after which I felt immediately compelled to write this.
> 
> One million parts: Geno’s offseason Instagram content and the, uh. _Inspiration_. It has provided to us all. Bless him.
> 
> Thanks to **_ambruises_** for cheerleading, commiseration, enthusiastic support of every idea I have no matter how random, and for helping me tackle the tough questions, like _should Chef Sid have tattoos in this world_?

“Chef,” Rudy sticks his head around riser at the corner of Sid’s work space, “Table 12 wanted me to give you his compliments on the Charcuterie. He said come out if you can, but no problem if you’re too busy.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Sid mumbles distractedly, fully focused on placing his microgreens just so, and with zero intentions of leaving his work station.

“Hey, Sid?”

When Sid looks up, Rudy’s still standing there.

“You might wanna make time for this one.”

Sid squares his shoulders calmly, straightens up to his full height. It’s true, if the customer gives him an out he usually takes it, stays tucked back in the kitchen where he belongs.

“Journalist?” He asks warily.

Rudy shakes his head, then breaks out grinning, a big goofy one like a kid with a secret.

“It’s _Geno_,” he says, eyebrows raised meaningfully. Sid can tell by the look on his face, that should probably ring a bell, but - .

“Geno - ?” Sid shrugs minutely, trying to think, but he can’t place a Geno. There was Geno Giancarlo, his fishmonger back in Brooklyn, but he wouldn’t be -.

“Dude,” Rudy stage whispers with a roll of his eyes, his limited patience having already expired. “It’s _Evgeni Malkin_.”

A horrified look suddenly comes over Rudy’s face and he goes on, all in a rush, “you know who that is, right?”

And, yes, Sid is aware that it’s a running joke among his staff that he never leaves this building and he doesn’t know what’s going on in the world around him, but he’d have to live under a literal rock not to know this one.

“Of course,” Sid nods, crisp and businesslike. _That_ Geno, right. “Sure, yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Rudy nods and disappears, looking relieved. Sid pushes the plate he’d been working on up onto the service counter and double checks the ticket, slides it neatly underneath. He steps back, touches Jane’s shoulder until she looks up from her station.

“Can you cover? They need me out front.”

It’s not quite a whisper, but it’s close. Sid is notorious for keeping a quiet, orderly kitchen. At the start of his career they said he’d have to learn to work in chaos or he’d never make it in this business, and there was some truth to that. But ever since he’s been running his own show, he runs it his own way. He likes things calm, controlled, efficient. That’s how he’s able to focus most effectively; it’s how he produces his best work.

He unties his apron and folds it neatly over the bar under the counter, scrubs his hands for the four hundredth time today, dries them on a clean white towel from the tall, precariously leaning stack over the sink. He almost makes it out of the kitchen before he remembers, has to turn back to pull off his backward cap, stow that under his station as well. He runs his hands through his matted curls a few times, but there’s nothing to be done, really. It is what it is, and it’ll have to be good enough.

When he comes around the corner of the open kitchen and into the dining room, he can feel the curious eyes on him. His name and face have been in the local papers for the last year and a half, ever since the Post-Gazette picked up the story in the summer of 2017: _Most Funded Restaurant Kick-Starter in History Still Struggling to Open Doors. _

Sid’s not sure he would have characterized it as a _struggle_, exactly. He had to secure supplemental financing, yes, and it took a while, _yes_. But setting up a Kick-Starter page from your apartment in Brooklyn, one night when you’re drunk and heartbroken at four in the morning is easy. Realizing a few weeks later that it_ worked_, that now you have a bunch of people expecting you to do what you said you would – abandon your whole life in New York and go start a new restaurant in what’s left of the aging, decrepit, half-abandoned shell of your post-industrial Rust Belt home town - .

Yeah, that’s _a lot _harder.

The point is, Sidney’s mug has been in the papers, been on the local news a lot in the past few years – first for undertaking this project to begin with, then for taking longer than some journalists and food critics _who’ve never opened a restaurant before_ thought it should, and finally, more recently, because of all the accolades the restaurant has been piling up.

Even though it’s late on a Wednesday night, kitchen 45 minutes from closing, the place is still packed, just the way it has been since Sid finally got the doors open a little over a year ago.

He doesn’t come out front much, can do without all the staring and frankly, the accolades as well. He’s happiest back in the back corner of the kitchen, hidden from view, focusing on his work without any distractions – but. It’s rude, not to come out and accept the thanks of a patron who’s requested an audience.

Especially one who happens to be a local hero and, arguably, the most famous person in the city.

“Mr. Malkin,” Sid bows slightly to the side of Table 12. It’s a six top, surrounded by a group of men with a distinctly Euro fashion sense. “I hope you’re finding everything to your liking tonight?”

Malkin looks up, mildly startled, then he grins broadly. He has a kind face, bright eyes, and very chapped lips.

“You are chef?” He asks, eyebrows raised, and watches as Sid nods.

“You are Russian?”

There was a time Sid would have reveled in a Russian person making that mistake, based solely on his food.

Then there was a time, later, when he would have felt that comment like a knife to the heart.

Now, it just makes him feel vaguely like an accidental imposter. He grits his teeth and shakes his head.

“No – I. I’m interested in Russian cuisine. But not Russian myself, just regular American. Irish. Yinzer.”

He forces himself to stop talking. This is why he tries not to come out front.

But Malkin just nods, still smiling.

“Cannot believe,” he says, incredulous, “when I see Kholodets and Adygeisky, tomato and radish and beet pickle, you not Russian!”

Sid ducks his head and shrugs modestly.

“We just try to do interesting stuff, maybe stuff most people haven’t had a chance to try before.”

“Also Beluga,” Malkin goes on, raising his vodka glass, “is good choice. All good things you have here. Show people - Russia is best food, you know?”

His grin is sly and teasing, and Sid can’t help the way his lip tugs up at the corner, in response.

“Right,” he says, “for sure. Gotta spread the word.”

“I buy you?” Malkin asks, raising his glass again along with his eyebrows, but Sid quickly demurs.

“Still working,” he shrugs by way of refusal, “but thank you, I appreciate it. Hope we’ll see you back here some time.”

He bows again, overly conscious of the way Malkin’s eyes follow him as he spins on his heel back toward the kitchen. He hopes he wasn’t too abrupt, that he didn’t come off as rude, but as he makes his way back across the dining room he can hear Malkin turn back to his friends, chattering in Russian and laughing.

He speaks slowly enough, but his voice is too deep for Sid to understand any of it at all.

Sid stops at the bar and asks Josh to send over a bottle of Beluga Noble on ice, on the house, then goes back to his corner.

Malkin’s table stays until closing time, still lingering over that bottle of Beluga when Sid comes out of the kitchen to start his nightly closing routine. He goes through the same checklist of jobs he does every night after the kitchen closes but before the bar does, tries to keep his mind on the tasks at hand, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice Malkin’s gaze tracking his movements, if he pretended that he can’t feel the heat of Malkin’s eyes on him as he moves around behind the bar. Sid tells himself to keep his head down, but when he does look up, just to test his theory, Malkin doesn’t even bother to look away, just holds Sid’s gaze, direct and unblinking with just the tiniest hint of a smile.

The thing is, Sid’s notoriously bad at this stuff. He’s never had any working gaydar that he’s aware of, and he’s been wrong – very wrong – about this kind of thing probably more often, in his life, than he’s been right.

So he assures himself this is just another one of those occasions where he’s definitely reading something incorrectly, imagining things, because there’s no way the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is, whatever – _checking him out_.

That would be ridiculous.

-

Some nights Sid takes the interior stairs down from the kitchen to his apartment below the restaurant, and some nights there’s a last bag of trash or recycling to take to the dumpsters and he goes out the side door of the kitchen, through the parking lot to dump the trash, and in through his own front door, which is down the hill and on the opposite side of the building from the front doors of the restaurant.

Tonight he dumps the trash off then sidesteps down the hill. The first real storm of the winter was just a few days ago, and the parking lot gets plowed regularly but every time it does, it means the perimeter collects more dirty, crusty, crumbling piles of hard packed snow and ice. Sid’s lucky yellow clogs are top-of the line, officially non-slip, but that’s rated for wet and greasy kitchen floors, not for icy hillsides in November in Pittsburgh, and the last thing he needs is a concussion from falling on the ice.

He makes it down to the sidewalk on the other side of the lot and stops in front of his door, digging into his pocket for his keys, when he hears the distinct crunching of footsteps in the snow behind him.

It’s one a.m. in a place that’s typically a ghost town even in the middle of the day, so Sid’s heartrate kicks up immediately, hairs on the back of his neck pricking to life.

He spins around, on high alert, and standing there at the far edge of the circle of light cast by the corner streetlight, is Evgeni Malkin.

He’s bundled up in a puffy black coat, black hat, Burberry scarf, hands in his pockets. His eyes are nothing but deep shadows in the sodium glow of the light twenty feet above them, but it is, unmistakably, him.

His shoulders are hunched up around his ears, and Sidney might be notoriously bad at this stuff, but he’s also not an idiot, and he’s not so far removed from the after-hours hookups of his first restaurant jobs in Pittsburgh and later New York that he doesn’t recognize this for what it is.

It’s not the first time a customer has waited around for Sid, hoping to catch him after his shift, hoping to test a theory. It’s just the first time in - .

Well.

In a long, long time.

Sid hasn’t actually gotten laid in – _Jesus_.

Too long to even bother calculating, really, and to be honest he hasn’t missed it, or even thought about it much. Moving back home, opening the restaurant, that’s been all he’s had time to think about, all he’s _wanted_ to think about.

But Evegeni Malkin of all fucking people, standing in front of him now in the cold dark, a giant of a man waiting silently for an answer to an unspoken question, brings it all roaring back suddenly – what it feels like when you just – _need it_.

Sid feels on fire with it, in an instant. He shivers, but not from the cold.

“C’mon in,” he says, a little breathless from the shock, as well as from the sudden, overwhelming sense of anticipation. He jerks his head toward the garage door.

Malkin still doesn’t speak, just takes a few steps closer as Sid bends down to unlock the bolt, pulls the rolling door up to chest height.

He ducks under, and Malkin follows him. Once they’re both safely into the service vestibule, Sid pulls the door down, feels his pulse pounding at his temples. He shoves the bolt into place with his foot, and turns to unlock his front door.

Malkin is suddenly behind him, pushing up on him, crowding him against the door as Sid’s stiff, nervous fingers struggle to get the key into the lock. The only light in the vestibule is the entry light inside the apartment, shining through the wired safety-glass windows on the top half of the front door, and normally Sid would pull out his phone to spotlight the lock, but Malkin is a hot, heavy weight behind him, and _Jesus_, he just - .

He fumbles the keys, hears them clatter against the bottom of the metal door then hit the concrete floor, but Malkin’s arm is around his waist now, hand open against Sid’s belly and pulling him up tight, bodies pressed flush together and hot breath on the back of Sid’s neck, tickling his ear, and for fuck’s sake, Sid can’t even think, much less - .

“Pozhaluysta,” Malkin breathes, low and desperate-sounding behind Sid’s ear, barely a whisper, and Sid’s brain translates it slow, like he’s thinking through molasses, like the blood that’s rushing to his groin has left him unable to process language. He pants against the door, breath fogging up the glass until finally the message comes through: the man said _please_.

“Yeah,” Sid grunts back, and he grabs for the hand that’s flattened against his midsection, drags it down to cover his erection, his lightweight chef pants doing nothing whatsoever to restrict it. The touch feels like fire, it’s been so fucking long, and he rolls his hips right into that hand and whimpers, a shocked, hurt little forced-out sound.

It’s met with a string of low, fast Russian he couldn’t ever hope to translate while Malkin bodies him further against the door, hips aligned just right so Sid can feel the hard cock pressed up against his ass. Malkin yanks his hand away from Sid’s crotch, but keeps him pinned with the weight of his body while he fights with his coat, all frustrated hissing sounds and low curses while he yanks and pulls.

Sid hears the sound of his belt buckle, the metallic purr of his zipper being ripped open, then his hands are on Sid’s hips.

He reaches around, pawing at the waist and crotch of Sid’s pants in the dark, trying to figure out what he’s working with. Sid huffs a low laugh – most grown men don’t wear drawstring pants to work.

“Here,” he says, and reaches down to help, pulls the string on his pants to unknot them with a swift tug, and shoves them down off his hips.

Malkin’s hands are all over him, sliding under the waistband of his underwear, gripping his cock in the front, pulling down on his boxer briefs in the back until they’re finally wrenched down past his ass, then pressing his hands back up under Sid’s shirt and jacket, fingers mapping their way across Sid’s belly and up his chest while Malkin thrusts against him, rubbing his erection against Sid’s ass, bare skin on bare skin.

Sid turns his cheek to the glass and rests his forehead against the cold, hard surface, just riding the wave. Malkin’s hands are still clutching at him, one on his hip and one up around his chest, and his face is shoved against Sid’s neck, hot breath and spicy, expensive-smelling cologne making Sid’s knees feel weak, making him lose himself a little in the overwhelming rush of this long-forgotten feeling.

Sid feels like a live wire, like an exposed nerve: out of control and dangerous and unpredictable, hot to the touch and ready to spark and flare at the slightest provocation.

He feels like something dead that’s been shocked back to life.

Malkin’s tongue is in his ear, that low grumbling voice mixing up Russian and English against his skin, his big warm hand working up and down Sid’s shaft, now, and Sid is underwater, drowning in it, it feels so good. The thought comes to him, slow and far away and foggy, that he’s going to die right here in his vestibule and be found slumped outside his door with his pants around his ankles. They’ll think it was murder, probably, at first, and be shocked to discover that no, his heart just gave out from the excitement of it all, from the desperation of this sudden, furious, animal need that’s burning him up inside.

Malkin lets go of Sid’s cock, and Sid replaces the missing hand with his own, mindlessly rutting into his own fist.

But his brain doesn’t really come back online until he hears Malkin spit into his palm, behind him. He rubs his fingers between Sid’s thighs, then up the crack of his ass messy and quick, so Sid can feel the spit slipping down his skin. He shivers, because _Jesus_, he _wants_ it, he’d fucking _love_ it, but – but not _really_, not like _this_.

He thinks to himself, a little panicky, that surely this guy can’t mean to try and fuck him against a door, with no prep and only a wad of spit for lube.

Malkin spits again, and this time Sid can hear the wet sound of his hand sliding along his cock, and oh, fuck. Suddenly there’s a wet cock nudging around behind his balls, and Sid goes up on his toes to get away from it, lets out a halfway frantic _hey!_

But Malkin’s voice is soft, soothing when he tugs gently on Sid’s hips to bring their bodies back together, murmurs _no, sorry, so sorry, is okay._

“I’m not,” he says, “I’m not do inside, see?” and his cock slides back between Sid’s thighs, tentative.

“Just this, is okay?” he asks, low and solicitous as his cock slips back in between Sid’s ass cheeks, the fat shaft a warm, slippery tease over his hole. “Feels good for just this, yeah?”

Then the angle of his hips changes, and his cock is sliding under Sid’s balls and between his legs, so it knocks into Sid’s fingers where his fist is wrapped around his own cock.

Sid breathes again, and sinks back down onto his heels.

“Yeah,” he pants, breathless, “yeah, that feels good.”

Malkin groans, and launches into more low, fast, indistinguishable Russian. Sid slumps back against the door, face sweaty from the adrenaline. He arches his back and thrusts his ass out to be used, jacks himself while Malkin palms both his ass cheeks, squeezing and kneading, pushing them together around his cock and murmuring hot and damp against Sid’s shoulder.

Sid makes out something about his ass, and he’s not sure if it’s vulgar or complimentary or both, but the tone is soft and sweet enough to make Sid’s stomach dip and swoop suddenly like he’s on a fucking roller coaster. His vision goes gray and his rhythm turns all awkward, and he comes all over his front door with a jerk.

Malkin seems to realize what’s happened, because he lets go of his death grip on Sid’s ass, at least with one hand, and reaches around to swat Sid’s hand away and finish jerking him through the aftershocks himself.

Malkin’s hand comes away slick with the last few spurts of Sid’s jizz, then Sid feels those thick fingers spreading his ass checks again, slicking his own come along the crease. His cock jerks for a final time as Malkin’s hands go around his hips, fingers digging in.

“Good,” Malkin pants, “yes, so good, fuck.” He fucks himself into the crack of Sid’s ass with a suddenly uncoordinated lack of rhythm, four, five, six more times, then he groans, and Sid feels the wet, spreading heat as it slides between his cheeks, filthy and so fucking hot.

Malkin slides his cock idly through the mess and pants, his arms wrapping fully around Sid’s waist to squeeze him tight, draping himself over Sid’s back like he just finished a marathon and can’t walk another step.

Sid sags against the door, and does his best to hold them both up.

Finally, when they can both breathe again, Malkin straightens himself up, takes a step back, then another.

Sid feels the cold air rush into the space he leaves behind, raising goosebumps on his exposed skin, and he forces himself to straighten up, too.

And Sid hates this part; has always hated this part. There’s just no way to be dignified about bending over, bare-assed, to pull your pants back up after you’ve come, no seamless, not-awkward way to get from the shared physical intimacy of the afterglow to the businesslike, detached necessity of _thanks for coming _and_ goodnight_.

Luckily the vestibule is still dim and shadowy, even now that his eyes have adjusted. Neither of them will ever know the difference, if they can’t look each other in the eye.

Sid puts his clothes back in order, picks his keys up off the ground. He hears the suddenly-familiar-again sounds of the aftermath of every other tryst just like this one that he’s ever had – the zipping of the fly, the buckling of the belt, the soft exhalations that come from trying to tuck a shirt into already fastened pants. It may have been awhile, but Sid had his fair share of hurried, desperate groping and rutting in the alleys and backseats and basement stairwells of Pittsburgh and then Brooklyn, back in the early days of his careers – both culinary and sexual.

Sid fiddles with his own drawstring for overly long, tying and re-tying it until he sees that Malkin has stopped moving and is just standing there, waiting.

“Sorry,” Sid says, and kicks open the bolt on the rolling door. “I, uh.”

God, he really hates this part.

He bends to pull the door up to chest height again, and the light from the streetlamp comes pouring in.

Suddenly Malkin’s face isn’t just a muddled mass of shadows, it’s a flushed, bright-eyed, slightly sweaty _vision_, with a sheepish smile as the cherry on top.

“Sorry for, um,” he says, and gestures out to the sidewalk vaguely. “What is, you know -. Stalking?”

Sid snorts, then feels himself blush. Jesus, he’s embarrassing.

“Right, yeah, stalking,” he says with a nod. “I guess no hard feelings, considering.”

Malkin just keeps grinning at him, then takes a step closer.

“Yes,” he says, “Thanks for forgive.”

He takes another step closer, then his palm slides along Sid’s jaw, his thumb on Sid’s cheekbone, and suddenly he’s leaning in, suddenly they’re kissing, sweet and slow.

“Lucky for me,” he rumbles against Sid’s ear, then his lips press warm and dry against Sid’s cheek, and he ducks under the door and is gone.

-

Sid met Daniela when he was 23 years old. She had just been hired in the kitchen at Cebu in Bayridge, and she immediately adopted Sid with no effort or input at all from his side. She just picked him out like a stray dog at a shelter, and decided he was going to _belong_ to her.

“She do this,” Daniela’s mother said, when she first met Sid. “She collect people, since little girl. Welcome to club!” And then she laughed, warm and kind, and fed Sid tea and cookies in her tiny, pristinely clean kitchen with the yellowed, cracked linoleum and the peeling wallpaper.

Sid was a little worried at first that maybe Daniela’s interest in him was – a _crush_, or something embarrassing like that – and that he was going to have to _explain_, but it became obvious soon enough, she’d had him pegged from the start. She wouldn’t stop talking about her brother Dmitri and how they just had to meet, how she just knew he and Sid would be perfect together.

Nothing about Sid and nothing about Dmitri could ever possibly have lead any rational person to the conclusion that they’d be _perfect together_ – Sid with his quiet, polite, buttoned-down manner, his single minded focus and tendency to self-criticism, and Dmitri with his big, over-the-top personality, his supreme confidence bordering on conceit and his million different passion projects all going on at any given time. But of course it turned out that, as usual, she wasn’t wrong.

Daniela is almost never wrong.

Dmitri was small and thin, with artistically messy dark hair and what people like to call _brooding good looks_. He was a bartender by night and a novelist by day, and a hedonist most all the time. Sid is anything but a hedonist – and back then he was even less so – but something about Dmitri’s enthusiastic, unapologetic disregard for anything he didn’t actively _love_ and _want _to do was -. Inspiring. Contagious.

The fact that he actually loved and wanted _Sid_, of all people - that someone who shone so brightly would think someone like Sid was even worthy of his _notice_, it made Sid feel -.

Well. Special.

There’s really no other way to put it. Dmitri made him feel special, made him believe, on his better days, that maybe he really even _was_ special, or at least had the potential to be.

Seeing himself through Dmitri’s eyes was like seeing a whole different person underneath the surface of the totally average, totally forgettable, totally unexceptional kid Sid had been looking at in the mirror his whole life.

Honestly, it was Dmitri’s influence that made Sid leave Cebu after only 9 months as Executive Chef.

Admittedly, they were 9 celebrated, star-making months that created a devoted fanbase who he felt sure would follow him to his next venture, but still.

9 months of Executive Chef experience wasn’t much to build on before striking out on his own with a backer who was also new to the restaurant biz. But Dmitri always made Sid feel like anything was possible, like he could take on the world.

And also, a little like he’d be an unconscionable coward, not to mention a horrible bore, if he didn’t fling himself headlong into every new adventure that presented itself, and stop worrying so much about the potential consequences and all the ways it could go badly, _like a little babulya_.

Looking back on it, there was a definite element of bullying in Dmitri’s encouragement and support, and not much in the way of concern for Sid’s natural inclination to take things slow, or his anxiety and stress levels. They maybe really _weren’t_ that perfect together, as it turned out in the long run, but despite everything, Sid still misses him sometimes. Of course he misses having a partner, a companion, misses having someone to come home to at night, someone warm in the bed beside him in the middle of a long cold winter.

Misses having someone to cook for – not just customers, but someone that he _loves_, that he _knows_ well enough to know just the dish they need at just the right time, and the satisfaction he always got from providing that.

He misses the surprised, grateful way Dmitri would smile at him in the mornings when Dmitri’d been up since dawn, typing away at the little desk in the corner of the main room of their apartment, and he’d be so focused on his work he didn’t even notice Sid was up, knocking around in the kitchen, until Sid presented him with a hot fresh double espresso made just to his specifications, and a kiss on the cheek.

He misses the feeling of family, really, of Dmitri and Daniela and their parents, their quaint, warm little apartment in Bath Beach that always smelled of something freshly baked, that always felt _full_ and _happy_ in a way Sid’s childhood home never did. That somehow escaped being soured by the looming specter of poverty and neglect that Sid associated with his own parents’ house, despite their equally modest circumstances.

Mostly though, if he’s honest, he misses the way Dmitri could, on occasion, make him feel bulletproof, sure of himself, capable of anything. The way Dmitri believed so steadfastly in Sid’s talent, believed enough for the both of them.

But Sid figures that’s not unique to him, or to Dmitri. Everyone could use a shot of that kind of confidence, once in awhile.

-

Sid would have bet all the money he has left to his name on never seeing the guy again save on his television screen, but Malkin comes back the next week for dinner with a few friends, and sends his compliments back to the kitchen again, leaving Sid feeling flustered and distracted. When Sid goes out to thank him, Malkin offers to buy Sid a drink, just like last time, and Sid reminds him he’s still on the clock, just like last time. Sid knows he’s nervous and red-faced about the whole thing but he’s not sure what the fuck Malkin’s doing here. Because who the fuck returns to the scene of a frantic, clothes on, dicks out, _barely even counts as indoors_ hook up, unless - .

Well.

After considering all the evidence, Sid fully expects to find Malkin lurking in the shadows again after close, but this time he’s nowhere to be found. The parking lot is empty, and even though Sidney takes his time throwing away the half-empty bag of trash that he really could have left until tomorrow, even though he loiters around a bit with opening the rolling door and closing it again, Malkin still never materializes.

Once again Sid assumes he’s seen the last of him.

But then he comes back the next week, and the next and the next and the next and the next, until Sid loses count; until Sid stops feeling extra awkward and stilted every time he’s summoned out of the kitchen to Malkin’s table, and goes back to feeling just his normal levels of awkward and stilted.

Malkin always gets the Charcuterie and the Beluga, but he tries different entrees each visit, and always asks Sid to come out at the end, always tells him it was even better than he remembered from last time, always offers him a drink which Sid dutifully declines.

He never shows up on the sidewalk again, and Sid stops waiting for it, eventually.

He tries to stop _hoping_ for it, too, but he’s somewhat less successful with that endeavor.

Whatever’s bringing Malkin back over and over, it obviously has everything to do with the food and the drink, and nothing to do with Sid. And that’s fine, really; keeping things all about business comes much more naturally to Sid than anything more, anything - _beyond_ that – ever has.

Malkin always has a couple of guys with him, Russians who laugh and talk and hang around after dinner drinking Vodka, the way Russians tend to. They close down the restaurant, when they come, but Sid doesn’t mind.

Honestly, it’s his favorite time of night, when the kitchen is closed and the door is locked to newcomers, but the last diners are still inside, usually lingering over drinks or coffee and dessert. They’re usually the ones that are having the best time, tipsy groups of friends cackling loudly, or lovers leaning into each other, feeding each other spoonsful of lavender lemon cake or candied prosciutto and fig gelato in between kisses, all of them dragging the night out a little, not quite ready for it to end.

Half the wait staff is gone by then, so it’s just a few servers going through closing duties, the kitchen staff cleaning up, the clink and clatter of cutlery and glassware and china echoing in a way that’s nostalgic to Sid, reminds him of his childhood in a comforting way.

And Sid behind the bar, tallying the receipts and closing out the register, looking over stock lists and marking up his order forms accordingly.

The dining room is quiet enough that Sid can sometimes catch some of the Russian from Malkin’s table, mostly hockey and women, no surprise there.

His Russian is pretty rusty these days, for all that it was ever any good at all, but still, there are some words he knows for sure.

Like _handsome_, and _chef_, and _handsome chef_.

He gets the idea that Malkin’s buddies are just giving him a hard time, teasing him about always wanting Sid to come out and chat after their meals, and Malkin’s responses usually run something along the lines of _go to hell_ or _fuck off_, so Sid turns his face away when he hears it start up, doesn’t let anyone see how it makes him go pink.

-

It’s still late February, snow just barely starting to thaw a bit on the ground during the few sunny hours they get some afternoons this time of year, when Malkin shows up one night 10 minutes before the doors are locked. Sid’s already out of the kitchen, apron and cap off, running totals at the bar when he comes in with a burst of frigid night air.

He’s alone, tugging off his hat and gloves when Sid looks up.

“Mr. Malkin,” Sid nods, because there’s no one else around up front and Sid doesn’t care how awkward it is, he’s not letting anyone walk into his restaurant without a proper greeting.

He waits for the usual group of compatriots to file in behind Malkin, but they’re nowhere to be seen.

“On your own, tonight?”

“Please,” he says, “you not call _Mr. Malkin_, like I’m old guy.” He puts his hand to his heart, like Sid’s attempt at politeness is killing him. Sid grins and holds up his hands in surrender.

“Evgeni,” he concedes with a nod, at the same time as Malkin says, “is _Geno_.”

“Oh, right,” Sid corrects himself quickly, “Geno. Sorry, I -.”

“No, no, is good,” Geno says, hands waving as he deposits himself on a barstool. “Can call both, just. Most American can’t say right, you know? Need easy way, so – is Geno.”

He eyes Sid shrewdly.

“You say you not Russian, but – you say _Evgeni_, and like, sounds.” He waggles his head back and forth considering, then shrugs. “Russian.”

“My sous chef back in New York,” Sid says, while he’s pouring two fingers of Beluga Noble straight from the freezer under the counter, “and my - . Well -. She’s Russian. She and her family kind of adopted me, while I lived there.”

Geno accepts the drink and nods.

“You learn very good.”

“Thanks.” Sid knows he’s probably blushing. He takes the opportunity to hide his face behind the counter for a few extra beats, while he’s putting the vodka back in the freezer.

“Kitchen’s officially closed,” he says when he finally stands, “but I could probably throw together something if you’re hungry. There’s always stuff left back there, just can’t promise exactly what it’ll be tonight.”

“No, no,” Geno waves his hand. “I just come for vodka. Is on my way home.”

Sid’s resolved in these past few months to be perfectly, straight-forwardly professional with Geno, like he’s never even had so much as one untoward thought about the man, much less jerked off to the memory of Geno’s spent cock rutting through his own come in the crack of Sid’s ass. But before Sid can even think about how he’s totally keeping it professional, he raises an eyebrow and shoots a skeptical look across the bar.

“On your way home?” Sid says, clearly disbelieving, “Where do you live exactly? Middle of the Ohio River?”

Because the thing about _Mann’s Post-Industrial_ – the whole point of opening it up in this building, in this town – is that this place is on exactly no one’s way anywhere.

Currently, there’s really nothing other than this restaurant that’s bringing people to the borough of McKees Rocks. Sid’s hoping he’s the first step to changing all that, but - yeah.

Geno’s eyes glint, and he taps his glass on the counter - the universal signal for _hit me again, bartender – _then shoves it back at Sid with a mischievous smirk. Sid reaches back down for the Beluga.

“Maybe I’m go, like, just _little_ bit out of way,” Geno shrugs with an almost-shy grin, looking at Sid through lowered lashes.

A little shiver slides down Sid’s back at the tone of his voice, and he has to pause again with his face in the freezer.

When Sid slides the drink across the bar, Geno reaches for it before Sid lets go, his fingers wrapping around and holding in a way that can’t be accidental, Sid’s pretty sure.

“Have drink with me,” Geno says, still with that sly little grin. “You always say _working_, but you done working now.”

He holds up his wrist, his watch showing eleven p.m on the dot. It’s a Tuesday night; that’s closing time, and Geno’s been here enough by now to know that.

Sid technically_ isn’t_ done working, actually, but -.

“Just one,” he concedes, pulling the Beluga out again.

Geno smiles a big, wide smile, and Sid feels the bottom drop out of his stomach, that half-exhilarating, half-sickening, swooping lurch that he’s only felt once in the past two and a half years, in the vestibule outside his front door.

Before that, he didn’t even know he still _could_ feel that feeling, to be honest.

So this time, after he pours, Sid leaves the Beluga on the bar top.

-

Geno starts stopping in a few nights a week for a nightcap, just on his free nights.

Sidney knows when he has free nights, because the TV back in the staff room will always be showing the Pens game, otherwise, at least a couple of servers or kitchen staff always on break, gathered around watching at any given point.

Sid’s station is right across from the door to the Staff room; it would be impossible for him not to notice.

Geno always comes just before the doors lock, always when Sid’s already out at the bar. He orders vodka and cajoles Sid into drinking with him, and they shoot the shit in relative privacy with the place mostly empty and the staff working on clean up. Sid finds it hard to imagine that’s a coincidence, hard to imagine Geno’s not timing it that way on purpose, but then again, for all that Geno seems like he’s flirting sometimes, he hasn’t showed up at Sid’s apartment again, hasn’t ever so much as hinted that he even remembers that night in Sid’s vestibule, much less that he might like to do it again sometime.

Still, though - .

There’s the time Geno says,

“This must take, like, long time,” running his fingers lightly up Sid’s forearm where he’s leaned on his elbows over the bar.

Sid always takes his chef’s coat off when he leaves the kitchen, so he’s in just his plain black _Mann’s Post-Industrial_ t-shirt, his tattoos exposed. He shivers from the tingly touch of Geno’s fingertips, tentative and gentle on the thin skin at the inside of his wrist.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “I dunno. I didn’t get it all at once or anything, so.”

“Looks, like, you know,” Geno says, and Sid has come to recognize the way he uses _like_ and _you know_ to buy time while he thinks in English. “Is, uh. Badass?” He grins a sly grin, very pleased with himself for coming up with that one.

“I don’t know about that,” Sid says, deflecting as usual, but then Geno takes his hand and carefully turns it over, examining the other side of Sid’s forearm.

“Is just look pretty, or what it means?” Geno asks, looking carefully at the intricate ink.

“Uh, well,” Sid twists his arm to point, “It’s mostly stuff that represents me, so a lot of Pittsburgh stuff. Like that’s The Confluence, downtown where the three rivers meet. You know that one, right? And most of the big bridges are in here somewhere – there’s the Fort Pitt and the Fort Duquesne, Smithfield, the Three Sisters.”

He points out the yellow span of the 10th Street Bridge, the single pale green arch of the Birmingham, all of them woven in among the larger, more colorful design. He pauses to push his sleeve up a bit so his upper arm is more visible.

“And of course the most important one, the McKees Rocks Bridge. See, like that.”

He nods to the oversized black and white photo of the bridge that takes up one large wall of the restaurant, then back at where that same bridge spans his biceps in full color, shades of taupe and gray rock and its trademark Robin’s Egg blue metal work.

Geno’s fingers trace over it slowly, almost reverently, and Sid shivers again.

“What is this?” He asks, thumb passing over the three T’s just above the inside of Sid’s elbow. The letters are scrolling and all intertwined, forming part of an intricate root pattern for the tree that grows up the inside of his arm, its branches studded with colorful leaves and flowers and birds.

“That’s my family. My mom, my dad, my sister.”

“I have tattoo, also,” Geno says, almost distractedly, eyes still glued to Sid’s skin. Then suddenly he looks up at Sid from under his lowered lashes and says, almost coy, “but like, you have to get me more drunk to see. I’m have to take some clothes off to show.”

So. That must mean something, right?

Or, there’s the time Geno asks about the black punched steel cards that some of the patrons have.

“Oh, right,” Sid pulls a fresh one from under the register, lets Geno turn it over in his hand. “Those are for McKees Rocks residents only. 50% off your bill at _Mann’s Post-Industrial_, no restrictions no exceptions.”

“Why only resident?” Geno grabs his chest, mock-wounded. “Why not give to number one customer?” He smiles winningly, and Sid laughs.

“Yeah, right,” Sid scratches at the back of his neck. “I know you really need the break. Money’s tight and all.” He rolls his eyes, and Geno laughs too. “But, I guess -.”

Sid looks out the front windows, at the retaining wall across the street. It’s covered with overgrown greenery and weeds, and when it rains little mudslides fall over its edges, spilling over the sidewalk and sometimes even into the street below.

Out front, Singer Avenue is full of potholes and crumbling curbs, and on the other side of the parking lot, where Sid’s property ends, is a chain link fence barely containing a jungle of small trees and shrubs and other undergrowth littered with broken, misshapen headstones. It’s the remnant yard at West Park Monument, the stone cutters on the corner that have managed to stay in business only because whatever population is left in McKees Rocks tends to be old and infirm, and they just keep dying.

Just like the town itself – everything around here just keeps dying.

“There aren’t that many people left here,” Sid says finally, “but the ones that are – well. They’d probably never come here, otherwise. Too fancy, too expensive. But I grew up here, and I want. I just want to give them something to enjoy, you know? There’s not much to enjoy here anymore, not much of_ anything_ here anymore, but -.”

He shrugs again. Sid’s spent his whole life learning to keep his emotions in check, to have the stiff upper lip and _no use complaining about it_ attitude that was expected of any kid growing up in McKees Rocks. It used to drive Dmitri crazy, the way Sid played things so close to the vest. _So fucking repressed,_ he always said, with an undertone of frustration that only got worse, the longer they were together.

But Geno just looks at him with big shining eyes, and the look on his face is wide open in its empathy, almost heartbreaking in its tenderness, and. Sid has to look away, has to bite his lip to get a hold of himself.

“We’re just trying to do something good here,” he finishes, firm and resolved. “Be a bit of a bright spot in this town, if we can. God knows it could use one.”

And Geno reaches over and squeezes his hand, and nods, just as firm and resolved.

“You good man, Sid, you know,” he says, so certain and so sincere, “you family, you town is proud, I know this.”

And Geno doesn’t even know the half of what Sid’s attempting to do here, doesn’t know about the way Sid’s employees are mostly locals with no restaurant experience who he’s training on the job, that he’s paying his parents to tend and manage the garden and greenhouse he built up on the roof, that when the restaurant is closed on Mondays to the public Sid runs free classes for locals on basic nutrition and cooking skills, that he’s starting a co-op with a bunch of families in the neighborhood to use his suppliers to bring in fresher produce, better cuts of meat than anything the one tiny grocery store in town has stocked in years.

But he still says it, says that Sid is _good_, like he believes it whole-heartedly, and the way he squeezes Sid’s hand, well.

Sid knows he’s terrible at this stuff and everything, but it just seems like it has to mean _something._

-

Sidney’s great-grandmother was born Florence Mann. Sid never knew her, but he grew up with her story – with the whole family’s story – woven into the fabric of his life.

Florence was born in McKees Rocks in the summer of 1909, right in the middle of the big Pressed Steel Car Company strike. The strike was national news; McKees Rocks was a major hub of the Second American Industrial Revolution, back then.

She was born on August 22, the day they called “Bloody Sunday”. Sixteen people died that day, and scores more were wounded. Though she couldn’t remember it herself, McKees Rocks was under Martial Law for the first 17 days of Florence’s life.

It wasn’t the first strike that steel workers staged on the banks of the Ohio, and it wouldn’t be the last. The years that followed saw more bloody strikes, but also saw workers gain more and more rights, saw rising wages and safer working conditions, saw McKees Rocks turn from not much more than a filthy company-run slum to a thriving middle-class borough of almost twenty thousand. By the middle of the twentieth century, being a steel worker was a good job, something you could be proud of.

Florence was the only daughter in an Irish family with seven children. With the country at War and all the men - and plenty of the women - in town needed to man the foundries and forges of the Pressed Steel Car Company or Standard Steel Company factories, running the family business fell to her when her father died, and she excelled at it.

Mann’s Hotel was built in 1803, some say even earlier, was passed down from father to son for almost 150 years. It was rumored George Washington once slept within its walls. Florence grew up there, in the family’s basement apartment, and she ran the hotel and its small dining room from the Second World War right up through the Moon Landing. She married a man named Tipton and had four children, one of whom was Sid’s grandma Bertie. When things started going bad in the seventies, when the big Steel Companies started building plants overseas, leaving town and taking their jobs with them, all of Florence’s other kids left town to find work, but Grandma Bertie and her family stayed. She helped her mother run the hotel and took it over, eventually, with the help of her own son, Sid’s dad.

Sid grew up there, too, though he officially lived in a house a few blocks away on Holmes Street. But it’s where he spent his time, where he did his homework after school and where he had his first official summer job washing dishes and working the fryer in the kitchen. It’s where he fell asleep in the big, lumpy, overstuffed armchairs in the lobby, waiting for his mom and dad to finish up their work days and leave it to the overnight clerk so he could finally go home to bed.

It’s where he learned to love the sounds of the kitchen closing down for the night, where he first learned to think of the clinking of glass and silverware and the clatter of crockery as the soundtrack to his whole life.

It’s where he slowly watched the walls turn dingy and the carpet get worn without being replaced. Where he first realized that things were just getting worse every year – not just for the hotel, but for everyone in town, the whole borough of McKees Rocks.

It’s where he learned what desperation and despair look like, learned that they have a peculiar smell, that it’s musty and sour and will choke you if you breathe it in too long without finding some fresh air somehow, some way.

Sid found his first breath of fresh air at LeCordon Bleu in the city, working as a line cook in a diner and sharing a tiny, freezing cold apartment in a rickety old clapboard house in Polish Hill with four other half-starved culinary students. He was living there when his parents finally had to let the hotel go, still close enough to home that he had to be there to see the broken look in his father’s eyes as they closed the doors on two hundred years of his family’s legacy.

All Sid could think was, he was glad his grandma Bertie wasn’t there to see it.

As soon as he graduated and could scrape together a year’s worth of pinched pennies and actual cooking experience in a real restaurant, he hopped a bus to New York. When they crossed the bridge out of Philly into Jersey it felt like a load of bricks fell off his shoulders, somehow, and he breathed deep and filled his lungs up with the freedom of it.

Sid was already in Brooklyn when the hotel was condemned, then demolished, just a few weeks past what would have been Florence Mann Tipton’s one hundredth birthday. He was already working at Cebu by then, had already caught the eye of the Executive Chef, already been pegged as someone to watch. He was 22 years old and out in the word for the first time, living a life he chose for himself instead of the one that would have been thrust upon him at the Hotel, if things had been different, and he just - he didn’t have the time or the interest necessary for worrying too much about what was going on back in McKees Rocks.

You couldn’t have said or done anything, back then, to convince Sid he’d ever look back, that he’d ever willingly move back to his hometown, back to the oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness and failure that sometimes feels like it’s stifling every person who’s still fighting to live here.

Some days, he still second guesses himself, wonders if it’s all been worth it.

But then he looks at his employees, at the jobs they have that they couldn’t have gotten before, at his parents so proud of him and so happy to be helping him, working at the new family business, and he just can’t imagine being anywhere other than McKees Rocks, no matter what he might be missing out on back in Brooklyn.

And then there are the days Geno comes in, and Sid’s reminded that if he was still in Brooklyn, there might be things he’d be missing out on in McKees Rocks, too.

-

It’s the first Tuesday in March when Geno stops in after a game for the first time. He’s flush off of a win that Sid knows they really needed, and he’s extra chatty, telling Sid all about his own restaurant back in his home town, how it’s known more for the atmosphere – which is apparently meant to resemble a prison – than its food.

“Maybe you give me recipe for you kholodets, I give to chef,” he says, grinning, “then I make famous restaurant like you, get in Time Magazine.”

Sid snorts.

“Sure, if you pry it from my cold, dead hand.”

Geno does his favorite wounded pose, bottom lip stuck out and hand over his heart, like he’s in great pain.

“I’m think we friends,” he says dramatically, “but now I see how it is, you know.”

Sid just grins and pours him another Beluga. He sips it thoughtfully for a minute.

“My city was build like Pittsburgh, did you know? Was big plan of Stalin.”

Sid raises a skeptical eyebrow, but Geno insists.

“Yes, for real, he want make city like Pittsburgh. Is known for make metal – steel, iron, you know. Is couple oligarchs make lots money, and people work for the factories keep on stay poor, but is nothing else, you know? No other jobs to do in city, so. I’m thinking maybe make fun place for people can go, eat, hang out. Just something different than every other thing.”

He shrugs.

“When first land in Pittsburgh, is first thing I say – ‘smells like home’.”

Geno drinks more and talks more, about his family and their two bedroom apartment in a Soviet-built apartment block, about the way things were back then, when people just put their heads down and went to work and didn’t complain or ever even dream of something different, didn’t even know there _was _anything different to dream of.

“I’m like, fifteen when I’m first understand, some Russian go to NHL, maybe could go if I’m work hard. Maybe not just stay in Magnitogorsk, play on hometown team until I’m get too old for hockey, go work steel mill rest of life.”

Sid has been scrupulously unindulgent of his weaker urges, as it pertains to googling Geno or reading up on him. It’s seemed – kind of pathetic, or something, to be scouring the internet for little shreds of trivia on a person he’s come to consider an actual friend.

But he looks up Magnitogorsk on Wikipedia, because that’s different, somehow.

He reads about Stalin’s plan, about the rise and fall of the steel industry, about the fact that the city is so polluted that a study done in 1992 showed only 28% of babies were born healthy.

Geno was born a few years before that, but Sid can’t imagine things were any better in 1986.

Sid can’t help but think about young Evgeni, before he was Geno, gangly and skinny and probably shorter and smaller than he would have been – than he _should_ have been - if he’d grown up somewhere other than a grey-skied industrial city with the soot and the smoke and the noxious byproducts of the steel industry seeping into the air and soil and water all around him.

Sid knows that childhood. He_ lived_ that childhood.

It makes him feel closer to Geno, almost like they’ve lived these parallel lives. Kids from a certain kind of town, with a certain kind of ingrained poverty and hopelessness, who only realized just in the nick of time that there was any other way, any other kind of life to even _want_, much less to try to have.

Sid thinks it’s funny, how fate twists. How if Geno hadn’t found hockey, he’d probably still be in Russia, working in that steel mill just like his father. How if the steel mills of McKees Rocks hadn’t closed down and left behind a ghost town, Sid would probably never have left, would have never made a life or name for himself in New York, would have stayed here and run the Hotel just like countless generations of his family before him.

How if he hadn’t gone to New York to make a life and a name for himself, if he hadn’t fallen in love with - then had his heart broken by - a boy born in Soviet Russia but raised in America, he would never have ended up back in Pittsburgh, with Kholodets and pickled vegetables and grilled Adygeisky on his charcuterie board to entice Geno to come all the way to McKees Rocks to give it a try.

Sid thinks again, and again, that it all must mean _something_.

-

Dmitri left on a Saturday. It’s embarrassing to admit, but it took Sid a whole day to realize it.

He was working long hours, okay, and none longer than on Saturdays. When he stumbled into his apartment at 3 a.m., wrecked from an 18 hour day, he tried being quiet, tried turning on only the barest minimum of light, just like always. Not like he went around inspecting the apartment for missing items.

Sure, he thought it was a little strange, Dmitri not being home. But there were a million reasons he might be out – night out with friends, or staying at his parents’ apartment, or -. Well, okay, those were pretty much the only two he could think of, but either seemed plausible enough, and honestly, Sid was too tired to think about it for too long.

Sundays were his day off; Daniela, along with their pastry chef Maria, handled Brunch and the usually-light Sunday afternoon and evening crowds without him.

Sid had rolled out of bed around noon, taken a shower, gone to the kitchen for coffee. He’d had a vague expectation of finding Dmitri at his desk, or on the sofa, maybe out on the fire escape with his shirt off, sunning himself like he liked to do the instant it got warm enough in Spring, but when Sid found he was none of those places, he still didn’t really think much about it. It wasn’t like Dmitri to go out without leaving a note, at least on Sundays which they usually spent together, but it also wasn’t _unlike_ him, necessarily. Dmitri had always been a bit of a don’t-fence-me-in free spirit, and that had always been just fine with Sid.

Sid, just – he just didn’t worry, because he didn’t think he had anything to worry _about_. It had been six goddamn years, sharing their lives together, and they were _partners_, and he just never thought - .

Not that it matters now.

But he’d never thought, not once, of leaving Dmitri. Of the possibility of_ losing_ Dmitri.

So Sid made himself some eggs and toast, drank his espresso, left a note saying he’d gone for a run, went for a run, stopped at the Cortelyou Greenmarket in Prospect Park South and picked up some fresh Ramps and Parsnips, and some gorgeous looking Fiddlehead Ferns, then got a cab home thinking the whole way about what he’d make for dinner.

When he got home to a still empty apartment, he’d felt the first twinge of true anxiety. He sent a text.

_Where are you?_

There was no answer. For two hours, there was no answer.

He sent another text, _will you be back for dinner?_ And a second one to Daniela, _have you talked to Dmitri?_

Dmitri still didn’t answer, but Daniela did.

_I spoke to him earlier. I’m so sorry Sid. Want me to come over after close?_

It was like something snapped into place, then. Like some tracking mechanism came online in Sid’s brain, suddenly pointing out to him all the things he’d missed all day: Dmitri’s laptop and all the papers from the top of his desk were gone, along with his messenger bag. The pens were scattered across the desk, but the coffee mug emblazoned with CCCP that usually held them, gone. Beside the bed, Dmitri’s stack of books, his reading glasses were gone. In the shower, Dmitri’s products were all gone. Most shocking though, was opening the closet to find three quarters of the space just - _empty._

Dmitri had always been much more into clothes and fashion than Sid would ever be.

Sid had felt suddenly dizzy, weak in the knees.

_Please_, is all he’d texted Daniela, before he laid down in the bed and curled onto his side.

-

It’s the grumbling from the group around the TV in the staff room that lets Sid know Geno’s hurt. He’s in the middle of a Saturday Night rush, so he doesn’t have time to even think about it, much less go find out more. All he knows is what he over hears – that Geno took a bad hit on a cross check from Bertuzzo, left the ice and didn’t come back.

Sid keeps his head down and goes about his business. He doesn’t think he’s reaching to consider Geno a friend, at this point, but to think of him as anything beyond that would be far-fetched, at best. It’s really none of his business.

Still, he pulls up the video once he’s back in his apartment after closing. Saturday nights the kitchen is open until midnight, the bar until two, so it’s 3 a.m. before Sid’s finally huddled in his bed with his laptop, watching the hit and the way Geno skated off slow and lopsided, cradling one arm.

Sid really shouldn’t care, and he knows it. He closes the laptop and tries to sleep, but even at this hour it’s a lost cause.

Saturdays into Sundays are his toughest times of the week, with the late close on Saturday and the early open for Sunday brunch. Sid’s got to be up in 5 hours to start brunch prep, so he really doesn’t have time to quibble with his brain about what’s an appropriate versus inappropriate sleep aid, at the moment.

He gives up and gives in, lets himself call up that night in the vestibule and slide his hand into his underwear. It’s tried and true at this point – works like a charm every time.

When Geno finally comes in a few days later, he’s moving a little gingerly and ordering club soda with a squeeze of lime and a cherry, instead of vodka.

“You look like maybe you should be at home, resting,” Sid says skeptically, but he makes the drink as ordered, slides it across the bar.

“No, no,” Geno waves him off, shaking his head, “is nothing, is little bruise.”

Sid raises an eyebrow, not buying it.

“That’s why you’re not having vodka?”

“Okay, fine,” Geno waves his hand again. “Little bruise, yes. Use to be nothing, yes. But now I’m old, so. Now is big thing, take pills, miss games, miss whole road trip.”

He shrugs, screws up his face all _what can you do_? He’s trying to make a joke of it, but his forced mirth doesn’t reach his eyes.

“We’re all running the same race,” Sid says, his Grandma Bertie’s voice suddenly coming right out his mouth without his permission, “some of us are just farther along than others.”

“Is riddle?” Geno shakes his head impatiently, like he’s too tired for such things. “I’m not know what this means.”

“It just means we’re all getting older every day. Even when we’re too young to realize it – that’s what life is. It’s just one long process of getting older.”

“Ugh, Sid,” Geno clutches his heart and lets his head loll back dramatically, “so depress! Why you talk like this? You still young!”

Sid grins.

“If I’m young, then so are you,” he points out. “I’m only a year behind you, buddy.”

“Young for life, ah, maybe,” Geno holds his hand out and rocks it side to side, not willing to commit. “But old for hockey, definitely.”

“Come on,” Sid chides, reaching over to refill the club soda, squeezing in another lime wedge. “Jagr played into his 40’s. You’re young compared to him, for sure.”

Geno snorts, nods like he can’t argue with that one.

“Can’t all be Jagr,” he says, almost wistfully, and Sidney thinks maybe it’s time to change the topic of conversation.

But before he can think of a new direction to steer things, Geno goes on, staring down at his drink as he rattles the ice against the glass.

“I’m turn thirty-three, in summer,” he says to his glass, low. “I’m win three Stanley Cups, lots awards and trophies. Since I’m a kid, hockey is whole life. But I start to think, maybe - .”

He breaks off on a sigh, and looks up, pins Sid with his eyes.

“You girlfriend in New York, she teach you understand Russian?”

“Uh,” Sid says, not sure which part of that he should address first.

“She wasn’t my girlfriend, just my friend,” he says, and wonders if should bother explaining further.

Probably it would just seem lame. Like, Sid’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to hammer home the point that he likes men. Presumably, Geno would have caught on to that the first night in the vestibule, regardless of whether or not he also thinks Sid likes women.

“I learned some, from her family,” he goes on with a shrug. “Not a lot – I’m definitely far from fluent. Mostly I just know please, thank you, food words, that kind of stuff. And curses.” He grins, and Geno gives him a knowing nod, but then his eyes narrow, speculative.

“When I’m bring friends for dinner, we talk Russian, you understand that?”

“Not really,” Sid shrugs, but he can feel his stupid face heating up, the most obvious, ridiculous tell ever. “I mean,” he amends, since his face refuses to let him lie, “not much, no.”

Geno’s still looking at him shrewdly.

“You hear, they tease me for want talk to you every time, tell you how good is everything.” He says it like he already knows the answer, so Sid just shrugs noncommittally.

“I kinda got that idea, yeah.”

Geno nods, then looks down at his drink again. His face looks sort of determined, now, as he rattles his ice some more. Sid feels a ping of something – anxiety, anticipation, just _something_ – race up his spine.

“When I’m young, I’m scared, you know? If someone say this, then I’m not come back here, probably. Just for be safe from them, in case they think – something, like, what I’m not want anyone think, you know?”

Sid thinks he does know. He just nods silently, and he hopes, encouragingly.

“Now I’m get old, and -.” Geno stops, takes a pull from his drink and crunches a thin, weak piece of ice between his teeth, almost angry. Sid just watches, waits.

“Think maybe I’m not scare so much, anymore, you know? Now they tease and say, oh, Zhenya makes eyes for this handsome chef, now I want maybe say to them, what if is true? Huh? So what? Why you care about it anyway? Why is your business? You know?”

Sid can feel his heart kick against his ribs, feel his breath coming faster. When Geno finally raises his eyes, a little furtive and nervous, maybe, about what he’s going to see in Sid’s face, Sid just gives him a long look, and a knowing nod.

“If you ask me,” he says, his gaze steady on Geno’s, “seems like there’s some advantages to getting old, after all.”

Geno shrugs, lets out a little laugh.

“Maybe you right,” he allows, crunching another piece of ice between his teeth. “You smart guy, Sid, you know?”

-

“Hey, I have something for you,” Sid says as Geno’s making moves to leave, just before midnight on a Tuesday at the end of March. Sid’s embarrassed and feeling stupid about it. It’s not a big deal, Geno’s his friend and there’s no reason to be so awkward, but that’s Sid for you.

“Oooh, for me?” Geno’s eyes actually light up, just like you read about – two shining pools of deep, deep brown. It’s kind of amazing. “Give to me now, please,” he demands, holding out his hand like a toddler demanding candy.

“Hold on,” Sid snorts and rolls his eyes as he heads for the kitchen.

He comes back with a little jam jar full of deep red fruit, and hands it over. Geno turns it over in his hand, looking at the label.

_Kompot Preserves, 3/25/19_

“We’re making Kompot,” Sid feels compelled to explain, “for our new Spring and Summer drink menu.” He pushes the little leather easel that sits on the bar top over toward Geno, points to the new Kompot Chiller on the Craft Cocktails list.

_2 ounces Stolichnaya, 4 ounces house-made Kompot juice (apricot, sour cherry, and black currant from our greenhouse), and a splash of club soda muddled with house-grown mint. Served with a sugared rim._

“So we’ve got all the stewed fruit left over once we strain the Kompot, and we’re freezing some of it for baking, but. My friend in New York – it’s her mother’s recipe, and she always preserved her leftover fruit.”

He gives Geno a shrug.

“She made sure nothing went to waste, which is. Definitely a good thing, in a restaurant.” God, he feels like an idiot, babbling over a jar of jam.

“Sid,” Geno says seriously. “If Russian woman give you her mama’s recipe, for sure is not just friend. Is girlfriend.”

He raises his eyebrows at Sid, little smile at the side of his mouth like he’s teasing, but also like he’s – _fishing_, honestly, and Sid thinks enough is enough.

“It’s not - ,” he starts, then stops, starts again. “Her mother gave me the recipe herself. Not because her daughter was my girlfriend, but because I’m a chef.” He looks down at his fingers on the bar, drums them there a few times, then makes himself look up look Geno in the eye.

“And also, because it was her son, not her daughter. He was my boyfriend.”

Geno keeps looking at him, steady and unblinking. Sid can’t tell if he’s surprised, or not.

“You have Russian boyfriend. Before, in New York.” It doesn’t sound like he’s asking, just -. Repeating, to make sure he understood.

“For six years,” Sid confirms, then - . “Well. Born in Russia – Soviet Union, really. But raised in America, so. Sort of Russian, but mostly American, boyfriend.”

“Grow up in America, is not real Russian boyfriend,” Geno proclaims sagely, then looks at the jar in his hand. “Russian mama’s varen'ye, made by Sid, I’m know will be good. _Best_. Thank you.”

Sid feels his goddamn traitorous face get hot, like he hasn’t had much higher praise from much more knowledgeable critics, about much more intricate and technically difficult food than a jar of boiled fruit.

“Well, just – ,” he shakes his head, mostly at himself, and blows out a breath. “Put it on your pancakes, in your tea, whatever weird things you Russians do with your jam.”

He gives Geno a grin to make sure it’s clear he’s teasing, and Geno’s hand goes to his heart again, always so dramatic.

“This is stereotype, Sid! I’m eat on toast just like America.” Then he grins, too. “But also eat on my pancakes, for sure.”

Geno’s back the very next day, singing the praises of the preserves, and when he stands to leave at the end of the night, he slides a little white envelope across the bar.

“Something for you. Say thank you for kompot varen'ye.”

Inside are a pair of tickets for Sunday’s home game against the Hurricanes. Sid can’t be sure, but Section 102 Row C sounds like the kind of seats that probably cost hundreds of dollars. He purposefully avoids looking at the face value, before he slides them back across the bar.

“That’s really - . That’s so nice of you, Geno, but that’s _way_ too much. It was just a jar of preserves, and this is. I can’t accept this.”

Geno pushes them back, jaw set stubbornly.

“Sid, _yes_,” he says, petulant, “you take. You go to game, relax for one time, okay? You here every day, cook, work, always focus on business. Is all good things, but like, sometime is okay just have fun, you know?”

Sid was just about to say he has to work on Sundays, anyway, but now it just sounds like an excuse.

“I - ,” he starts but Geno shakes his head and flaps the little envelope at him.

“You let me come here all hours, keep you up late, talk ears off about hockey all time. You should go, enjoy, have fun. Sorry for I won’t be on ice yet, so can’t see best player, but team is still pretty good, yes?” He slides his tongue out the side of his mouth and pulls a goofy face, and Sid can’t help laughing.

Sid hasn’t taken a day off since the restaurant opened, a year and a half ago. Even when they’re closed on Mondays, he’s teaching community outreach classes, working on stock or inventory or bills, working in the garden – it’s always something.

He hasn’t even given it a thought, before, honestly. If he took time off, where would he even go? What would he even _do_? He’d probably just be downstairs in his apartment, listening to the sounds from upstairs and wondering what was going on up there, because that’s just how lame he is.

Honestly, the staff aren’t that far off when they give him shit about never leaving the building. Other than walking the three blocks down to his parents’ house on occasion, when his mother insists he let her cook him a meal for a change, his whole life, his whole existence, really, is on this little plot of land.

He can’t even remember the last time he drove into the city, not even to try a new restaurant.

And it’s not as if Jane isn’t more than capable of stepping in and holding down the fort, at this point. He could probably just talk to her, move some things around so Sid could take a few hours off on a Sunday evening. It’s not like the whole operation is going to come crashing down without him there, he _knows_ that, logically.

But this restaurant, this place – it’s his whole life. Everything he has, his money, his reputation, all his worldly possessions, they’re all wrapped up inside this one building, inside this one experiment that _has _to go right. All his eggs are in this basket; he has no other option but to make it work.

So yeah, it’s a little hard to think about taking his hands off the wheel even for a few hours.

But Geno is looking at him, eyebrow raised in a way that says he’s ready to keep arguing, if Sid is.

Sid blows out a breath, and lets the tension go out of his shoulders, wills himself to just relax. He nods, finally, and reaches to take the tickets from Geno’s hands. Geno lets them go, then wraps his fingers around Sid’s wrist. His touch feels electric, like the low hum of a neon light, buzzing up Sid’s arm and invading his chest.

“Thank you,” Geno says sincerely, eyes shiny and dark, “for accept my gift. Know is maybe hard for you, sometime hard for me, too. But I’m want to give, very much. I’m happy for you to have. Okay?”

Sid feels a little breathless, looking down at where Geno’s hand is holding his arm, Geno’s thumb pressed warmly against Sid’s pulse point. He feels, once again, like – like it means _something_. Like this is about more than a jar of preserved fruit and a pair of hockey tickets, about more than a shared nightcap a few nights a week and a few hour’s worth of shooting the shit here or there.

Like it’s _definitely_ about more than a one-time hookup with a virtual stranger.

This is building to something, Sid’s sure of it now, sure even beyond all his own insecurities and his own doubts about how he never gets these kinds of things right.

He _feels_ right, this time. _This_ feels right.

Sid nods slowly, and swallows past the lump in his throat.

“You’re right,” he says softly, voice thick, “it is hard, sometimes, but. It’s good, too, I think. Good to let people help you. Good to let people in, a little.”

“Yes, is very good.” Geno says, almost shy but clearly pleased.

Sid feels himself blushing again, but he doesn’t bother trying to hide it this time.

-

When Daniela showed up at Sid’s apartment, the day after Dmitri left, she found him still in the fetal position on the bed.

“_No_,” she said, emphatic, “no, get your ass up.”

“I don’t wanna,” Sid whined, but Daniela was already turning on the overhead light, tossing the covers off of him, leaving him cold and squinting and in pain.

“What do we do when some asshole breaks our hearts?” she asked, as if the asshole in question wasn’t her own brother. “Do we lie down and cry like children? No! We sit up and drink. Like men!”

“Dani,” Sid croaked, feeling old and tired and heartbroken. “I can’t, okay? Not now, I just. I can’t.”

Dani just snorted, like she’d never heard anything so ludicrous. So of course, they drank.

A lot.

Somewhere around his 5th shot, Sid stopped feeling so sad, and started getting mad.

Because what kind of coward sneaks out of the home he shared with his partner of six years without so much as a note, or a word, just takes his shit and _runs_?

“A filthy, sniveling rat,” Daniela supplied helpfully – once again, as if the filthy sniveling rat in question wasn’t her brother.

She let Sid rant and rave, about all he’d given up, all the compromises he’d made over the years for Dmitri, how everything had been on Dmitri’s terms.

Of course, that wasn’t precisely true, that _everything_ had been on Dmitri’s terms. Sid was a workaholic, more invested in his restaurants and his career than his relationship, Dmitri would probably say. Sid was inaccessible, unavailable, Sid was cold and emotionless and had driven him away, Dmitri would probably say.

If Dmitri had said anything. But he hadn’t, had he? He’d chosen the coward’s way out, and now Sid was drunk and getting drunker, on a roll, and he wasn’t about to let the truth get in his way.

Somewhere between the vodka and the tears and the yelling, Sid has a vague memory of whispering to Daniela his most secret, most closely-guarded dream – the one he’d never told anyone, not even Dmitri. The one he’d never even spoken aloud at all: to open a restaurant in his home town.

But not just any restaurant.

One that would put McKees Rocks back on the map, bring jobs and people and money and maybe even some _hope_ back to the hopeless, dying place that made Sid who he is.

It would mean stepping out on the most fragile of limbs, all alone. It would mean no partners, no backers, mean doing it himself from the ground up. It would mean Daniela would have to buy him out of _Prazdnik,_ their almost-new joint venture that they’d just spent a year getting off the ground. But - .

“Oh my God, _Sidney_! _You should_ _do that_!” Daniela had screamed, one hundred percent behind him as always, and Sid had felt – something.

Whether it was bravery or bravado, genius or recklessness that drove him, there was something inside him that night that made him just. _Reach for what he wanted. _With both hands, all at once, with no Plan B and no careful consideration of all the downsides and potential pitfalls.

It was the least _Sidney_ thing he’d ever done in his life, making that Kick-Starter page, drunk in the wee hours of the morning. And yet, somehow, the most important and authentic thing he’d ever done, also.

He could have forgotten about it, probably – just woken up hungover and miserable and dragged himself to work the next morning, and never thought of it again, except.

Except by the time Sid finished work on Monday, still hungover and miserable, Daniela was waiting for him in the office, grinning like a lunatic. She just pointed to the computer with an almost inaudible squeak, and when he looked over her shoulder at the screen - .

It was the Kick-Starter page, with the total raised showing big and bold: $26,224.00

Twenty-six _thousand_ dollars. In under 24 hours.

And then it just kept going, the total climbing day after day, and what else could he do? He couldn’t forget it, couldn’t change his mind, couldn’t chicken out, not after people gave him one hundred, then two hundred, then _three hundred thousand dollars_ in donations. Not after people from kids he grew up with to kids he went to culinary school with to people he’d worked with in kitchens in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn to customers to neighbors to strangers on the internet made Sid’s the most funded restaurant project in Kick-Starter history.

_Be careful what you wish for_, his Grandma Bertie always used to say, and never had Sidney understood that more clearly than the day he drove his loaded down uHaul out of Brooklyn, leaving his whole life behind.

-

“Sid,” Rudy says, and he looks alarmed. Sid straightens up immediately, hair on his neck standing at attention at once. He puts down the torch in his hand, leaves the tangerine, sour cherry and black currant custard in front of him half-brulée’d.

“What’s up?”

“Dude,” Rudy says, eyes wide, “Mario Lemieux is in the dining room.”

Sid’s breath catches in his throat.

“Is he – uh,” he struggles to maintain his composure, a little. “Is he, you know. Asking for me?”

God, he sounds pathetic, but Rudy just nods slowly with those big eyes. Sid whips off his apron and his hat, runs a hand over his face.

Jesus, he didn’t even shave today.

“Chef,” Mario Lemieux stands, and extends his hand when Sid walks over. Mario _fucking_ Lemieux. Sid hopes his hand isn’t too sweaty.

“Mr. Lemieux,” Sid nods, “very nice to meet you.”

Mario – Sid can’t help but think of him that way in his head, even if he’d never presume to call him by his first name to his face, and even if, he can’t help but notice, Mario didn’t correct him when Sidney called him _Mr. Lemieux_ – smiles, easy and broad, and the eight year old boy inside Sid wants to squeal, delighted to meet his hero.

“I think we have a mutual friend,” Mario says, “he can’t stop raving about your food.”

Sid knows he’s fucking blushing, but – he should have known Geno’s fingerprints were all over this.

“I hope he didn’t oversell it,” Sid says, but Mario shakes his head.

“Don’t tell my wife, but if that wasn’t the best lamb I’ve ever eaten, it was certainly right up there.”

That doesn’t help Sid with the blushing situation, at all.

“Food aside - Geno’s told me about all the work you’re doing here, it’s really impressive. He suggested we look into ways we could partner up, help you do more good in the community here.”

“I – sorry, but,” Sid’s just – dumbfounded. “You mean partner up, like, with the _Penguins_?”

Mario laughs.

“I think that’s the idea, yes. We’re putting together some thoughts – maybe we could schedule a time to meet this summer, see if there are some opportunities that might be a good fit for both of us?”

Sid hopes he manages to respond appropriately; to be honest, he can’t remember either way. He only knows he’s got Mario Lemieux’s business card on his desk, with a name and number scrawled across the back of it - by _Mario Lemieux_ – for the person Sid’s supposed to call, to set up a meeting.

To talk about ways _Mann’s Post-Industrial_ can partner with the Pittsburgh Penguins, to help the community.

_Right._

-

“Hey,” he says to Geno a few days later, when they’ve both had a couple of vodkas, while he’s still holding the door open for the last patrons, who just filed out into the April night. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

Geno stands and pushes his stool back, no questions asked.

“Grab the bottle,” Sid says, nodding at the Beluga Noble sitting in its now-customary ice bucket on the bar next to Geno’s usual stool, and leads the way outside.

Because the building is built on a hill, the restaurant itself, which is on street level at the front side of the building at Singer Avenue, is on the second floor at the back side of the building, above Holmes Way.

That’s also why Sid’s apartment, which has its entrance off Holmes Way, only has windows across the front, and halfway along the sides of the buildings. The whole back half is built into the hill, under the front of the restaurant, with one door out the side and an ancient, steep set of steps leading up to the restaurant kitchen above.

It was an auto body and mechanics shop when Sid was growing up, with a parts store and tire show room on Singer Avenue, and the mechanics bays down below, off Holmes Way. When Sid bought the building, he replaced all the glass block windows with real glass, replaced the sliding barn doors at the Singer Avenue entrance with some industrial replicas, made of metal and glass. But he left the lettering that had been painted on the brick over the front doors since God knows when - _Frank F. Wilde Commercial Truck Bodies, Wagons, Horseshoeing & Repairing – _left the rest of the exterior alone, even the rolling garage door that conceals the front door of his own apartment and creates the little service vestibule where he and Geno first - .

Got _acquainted_.

Fire code required Sid to put in a second exit from the restaurant level of the building, so he’d paid a stupid amount of money to cut a door out of the brick at the back of the building and install a metal fire escape down to the parking lot, along the side of the building. But, it also gave him the idea that while he was at it, he might as well add stairs up from that same door, up to the roof where he had a 3000 square foot roof just waiting to be used for – whatever Sid could dream up.

He leads Geno around the side of the building and up the fire escape, past the restaurant level, all the way to the roof.

By now, the roof has an 18 foot by 24 foot greenhouse installed, as well as raised beds of heartier vegetables and herbs that can flourish in the open air. There are plenty of flowers, as well, to bring the bees and encourage pollination.

From the Southwest corner of the roof, above the intersection of Holmes Way and Holmes Street, you can look straight down the silver ribbon of the Ohio River to the lights of downtown Pittsburgh in the distance, less than 5 miles away, as the crow flies.

Sid’s always felt like it’s a magical spot, honestly – even more so since his mom has been working in the garden and greenhouse, cleaning it up and making it more than just functional, making it beautiful.

It was his mom’s idea to put up the café lights around the perimeter of the roof, to bring up a table and chairs and citronella torches, for family meals in the summer or, in this case, for Vodka with a – friend – on a still-chilly early Spring night. Sid can see it on Geno’s face as he looks around, the magic isn’t lost on him.

Sid motions for Geno to sit while he finds a lighter to light the torches, then settles into the chair right beside him. He takes a swig from the bottle of Beluga, then offers it to Geno, who takes it, looking a little tentative.

If Sid has thought before that Geno’s eyes shine in the restaurant lights, that’s got nothing on the way they look in the soft white of the café lights mixed with the flickering flame of the torches.

Sid has to take a deep breath, just to gather himself.

“Mario Lemieux came to see me,” he says finally, into the silent night.

Geno takes a slow swig from the bottle, and doesn’t look over.

“Good,” he says, nodding finally, “Is good, I’m tell him he should. Tell him you have best food, best wine, he should come see.”

“He talked to me about maybe partnering up with the organization, for some community outreach stuff.”

Geno still doesn’t look over, just nods slowly.

“This sounds like good idea, I think. Seems like can be win win for everyone, maybe. Don’t you -.”

He pauses, cuts his eyes over tentatively.

“Do you not like? I can tell Mario not to do, if you don’t want, okay? No big deal.”

Sid meets his eyes, just for a moment, before he has to look away again. He concentrates on the lights of the city, off in the distance.

“Geno, it’s. I mean, of course it’s – I love the idea, but. I love that you thought of me like that – it means. That means a lot to me. But also - I want to tell you, you didn’t have to do that, you know? Just because you have these – whatever – _connections_, I don’t want -.”

Sid stops, sighs, tries to order his thoughts.

“It’s just, you’re my friend, and that’s. That’s enough for me, okay? I don’t need you to – to do anything more than that. Do you know what I mean?”

Geno turns the bottle up again, then stares at it in his hand.

“I’m know what you mean, Sid. Like, is lucky for me, to find such good friend, you know? Who is not wanting anything from me, just wants be my friend. I’m glad, very lucky, you know. But -.”

Sid reaches for the bottle, and their fingers brush together. Sid shivers, surprised he can’t see actual sparks in the air, the space between them feels so charged.

He takes another pull off the bottle, and waits.

“But also,” Geno goes on, finally, and Sid holds his breath. “Also it means lot to me, for be able to help you here. All time I’m telling you, you do good stuff here, you try help everyone else, so maybe I want help you too, you know? If anyone deserve, is Sid.”

“Geno,” Sid says softly, because he doesn’t know what else he can say.

“Is true,” Geno goes on stubbornly, chin jutting like he’s daring Sid to disagree. “And is okay for let people help sometime, remember?” He raises his eyebrows, nodding, like he’s convincing himself along with Sid.

“Is okay for let people see inside, sometime, even when is hard, when you scared. Just like you say before, you know?”

“Sometimes, there are good reasons to be scared,” Sid points out, because he can’t even imagine being in Geno’s shoes. Can’t even imagine what he’d be putting on the line, here, if this keeps going the way it seems to be going.

He’s a professional athlete, for God’s sake, and a Russian one at that. There’s just – it’s hard to imagine someone – anyone – _Sid_ – being worth the risk that Geno would be taking, if this went -.

Well.

Anywhere, really.

But then Geno’s hand is sliding over Sid’s.

“_Always_,” he says, with frustration in his voice. “Always there’s good reason to be scared. Always there’s good reason to say, oh, just keep on go the same way because is too scary to go new way, you know? But maybe, like. Maybe new way is best way, you know? Maybe new way is.”

He stops and looks down at their hands, and Sid watches his Adams apple bob as he swallows thickly.

“Maybe new way is only way for be happy. Be _free_, you know?”

Sid slides his hand out from under Geno’s and puts his own on top, squeezes Geno’s freezing cold fingers, the only encouragement he knows how to give.

“Maybe,” Geno says, and grins over at Sid, “when you old like me, you get tired of be scared and like, you just say _fuck it_, you know?”

Sid laughs, and nods as he lets go of Geno’s hand.

“You know,” he says, eyebrow raised, “you could have sent someone from PR, or, I dunno. I’m sure there’s like, a community outreach team or something. You didn’t have to send _Super Mario_.”

“Yes,” Geno grins, mischievous in the shadowy light, “but PR lady is not in the posters Sid have in his room when he’s little boy, is not who Sid cheer for on TV and pretend to be when he play pond hockey when he’s baby. If I’m want really impress Sid, need to use big guns. PR lady is not get job done, you know?”

He reaches over and pokes at Sid’s ribs, and Sid laughs again, thinking maybe he never should have told Geno any of those stories about growing up loving the Penguins, about the way Super Mario made him feel like at least there was one thing in his city to be proud of, and about the way Jagr made him feel -.

Well.

Feelings of a whole different stripe.

“If you really wanted to impress me, you would’ve sent Jagr,” Sid says, straight faced, and Geno snorts, wags his finger.

“Send Mario, you first big hero, is smart move. Send Jagr, you first big crush, is dumb move.” He smirks at Sid from under his lashes, that little half cocky-half coy look he gets sometimes, when he’s blatantly flirting and not bothering to be shy about it. “I send him for help, not for competition.”

-

Sid’s back in the office, when Jane sticks her head in. The door’s been locked for a while, only Sid and Jane are left in the place and half the lights are already out.

“Geno’s out front,” she says, and makes a face that doesn’t mean anything specific, really, except that whatever it means is clearly nothing good.

Sid raises his eyebrows in a question, and she mimes tipping up a bottle, mouths _drunk_.

Oh, great.

“Shit,” Sid sighs, and Jane nods her agreement.

“Right, sooo. I’m going out the side door, good luck with all that!” She’s picking up the 12 different bags and totes she brings with her every day, looping them over her arms.

“Yeah,” Sid sighs again, and stands to go deal with whatever’s waiting for him out front. “Night.”

He’s halfway out the door when she calls back to him.

“Hey Sid? If you need – time, or whatever. Just let me know, yeah? I can cover, you know. Just – if you need it.”

Sid has no idea what his staff at large thinks about his relationship with Geno, about what Geno’s doing here every other night, drinking and hanging out with Sid. But obviously Jane thinks -.

Well. _Something_, apparently.

“Sorry I’m come so late,” Geno says, as soon as he lays eyes on Sid. “Is just, I’m not ready for people see me, you know? But like, I’m want see _you_, so. Sorry.”

He looks too thin, dark circles under his eyes and scraggly beard still in place, hair too long and unruly. He looks a little unsteady on his feet, and a lot sad.

None of which is surprising, Sid would assume, for a man who just lost his first-round playoff series two days ago in an embarrassing 4-0 sweep.

“It’s no problem,” Sid assures him, “but please tell me you didn’t drive here.”

Geno sways a little as he shakes his head.

“Friends drop me off.” He shrugs, looking down at his feet. “Is okay, can take Uber home. I’m sorry for bother.”

“Hey, hey,” Sid steps over, puts one hand on Geno’s back and one on his arm. “It’s fine, I promise. But let’s get you downstairs, somewhere you can lie down, okay?”

Sid parks Geno on a barstool while he hurries back to the office to put the laptop to sleep and check the fire door is bolted. Then he double checks the front doors are locked as well, and steers Geno over through the kitchen to the stairs down to his apartment, turning off lights behind them as they go.

“This where you work,” Geno observes drunkenly as they walk through the dim kitchen.

“Uh huh,” Sid says, going down the steep stairs ahead of Geno, just in case, “if you’re hungry I’ll make you something in my kitchen downstairs, okay?”

“No,” Geno says, breath hot against the back of Sid’s neck as Sid’s pauses to unlock his back door, “’m not hungry, Sid. Just I’m want see you, you know?”

Then Geno’s hands are on his hips, his forehead against Sid’s shoulder blade, and Sid has to stop to gather himself, force his fingers to turn the key in the lock.

“Hey,” he says, and reaches back to ruffle Geno’s hair, “you’re okay, come on in here and we’ll get you taken care of, yeah?”

Geno’s hands fall away from Sid’s hips as he shoulders the door open and turns on the light, steps into the apartment.

“This where you live?” Geno asks, sounding drunk and sleepy as Sid steers him toward the couch.

“This is it,” Sid deposits him on the couch and blows out a breath, taking stock of the situation.

Sid’s time, energy, and money for the last three years have all gone to the restaurant, and as soon as the restaurant opened it all started going to the greenhouse and garden, instead. All of which means that other than the bathroom in the corner, Sid’s apartment is still one big room, with concrete floors and brick walls and exposed duct work. Along the back wall, his kitchen is a bunch of dented, banged up, surplus stainless prep tables and a used 6 burner range, along with an old glass-front soft drink refrigerator, still branded with old Fanta stickers, that one of his suppliers gave him for free. There’s a king size mattress and box springs on a platform made of old pallets against one wall, and a TV against the other, with a big sectional sofa facing it. There’s a rolling clothes rack that serves as his closet, and a small chest of drawers next to the bed that does double duty as his dresser and night stand. There’s one big metal utility cabinet, left in the place from its days as a garage, that Sid cleaned out and cleaned up, and now uses as his storage/supply/coat/linen closet.

And that’s it – that’s the whole place.

Sid’s sure Geno probably has some 10 bedroom mansion in the suburbs somewhere, probably hasn’t slept in digs this rough in years, but now way is Sid putting him in an Uber, alone, when he can barely hold his head up. Sid’s one spare pillow and the chenille throw he keeps on the sofa will have to do, for tonight.

He manhandles Geno into lying down, stuffs the pillow under his head and covers him with the blanket, then tugs off his sneakers and goes to shower. He sets his alarm for eight a.m. as usual, then lies there for a few minutes listening to Geno’s soft snores.

When he’s thought about Geno spending the night at his place someday, this isn’t exactly how it went in Sid’s fantasy.

By the time Geno sits up in the morning, groaning and squinting, Sid’s already got his smoked salmon and asparagus frittata almost finished.

He hands over an extra towel and points Geno to the bathroom, then makes two espressos and serves the frittata onto two plates, topping both of them with a bit of crème fresh, some dill and cracked pepper. He puts some day-old bread under the broiler for a few minutes, then pops it on the plates and puts out a pot of the Kompot preserves as well. He goes ahead and digs in, stands next to the island and eats right there, just like every morning.

What is very decidedly different than every morning is Geno coming out of his bathroom, towel around his neck and jeans slung low around his hips, skin damp and pink from the shower, still bare chested.

Sid almost drops his fork.

“Sorry,” Geno says, looking sheepish as he twists his t-shirt in his hands, “you maybe have shirt I’m could borrow? Mine is smell _very_ bad.”

He screws up his face by way of demonstration, and Sid swallows hard, and nods.

Roughly 90 percent of Sid’s wardrobe these days consists of black _Mann’s Post-Industrial_ branded t-shirts, because that’s what he wears to work every day. So that’s what he hands to Geno, who grins.

“Oh, now I see,” he says, “use me for free advertise.”

“That’s right,” Sid shrugs, “that’s the cost of room and board, pal.”

Geno scrubs the towel over his wet hair again, leaving it standing up every which way, then drops it over the back of the couch. Without it hanging in the way, Sid can see the tattoo under Geno’s arm, and his hand just – reaches out, without his permission.

Geno goes immediately, completely still; the air around them crackles to life as Sid’s fingers slide carefully around the curve of Geno’s body, hand tracing the ink over his ribs.

“You _did_ say I’d have to get you drunk, to see your tattoo,” Sid breathes, aware that he should probably move his hand, but seemingly unable to get his brain and his arm to work together. His thumb drags back and forth along Geno’s rib, and he watches with fascination the way Geno’s nipple pebbles and puckers right before his eyes.

“Sid,” Geno says thickly, and it snaps Sid out of it, or something. He draws his hand back like he touched fire, shakes his head.

“Sorry, I – God. Sorry,” he turns away, points back to the kitchen. “I’ve got breakfast for you, if you’re hungry.

Geno shrugs the _Mann’s Post-Industrial_ t-shirt over his head, sits on one of the stools at the island and takes a sip of the expresso Sid left for him. He picks up his fork, but he doesn’t eat.

“Sid,” he says again, and waits for Sidney to look at him. “Thank you for take care, last night. Sorry I make trouble for you.”

“No -,” Sid starts, but Geno waves a fork at him to cut him off.

“I want to come here, want to talk to you, but I’m get too scared when I think about, then I drink too much because am scared, then can’t talk to you. It was mistake, not mean to be drunk when I come last night.”

“It’s really okay,” Sid assures him, “I know it’s been a rough week.”

“Rough week,” Geno acknowledges. “Rough year. Maybe they all rough years now, maybe no more good years left, I’m not know what future will be, but. What I want tell you, last night, you know, is -.”

He shrugs, then stands. Sid has a white-knuckle grip on the metal counter top with both hands. Geno takes a step around the side of the island, a step closer to Sid, and Sid forces his fingers to let go, forces his feet to take a step, too. It’s only fair after all of this, after everything – they should meet in the middle.

“Still scared,” Geno says, his eyes wide, “maybe always will be little bit scared, you know? But - .”

He reaches out a hand, just far enough that his fingers can snag in the hem of Sid’s t-shirt, and tug.

“It’s a big risk for you,” Sid whispers, and they’re standing so close now their chests are almost touching, but Sid’s hands are still at his side, Geno’s fingers twisted in Sid’s t-shirt still the only point of contact between them. “You have so much on the line, I just. I wouldn’t blame you, you know. If you just – can’t.”

Geno just shakes his head, dips his chin so his forehead rests against Sid’s, so they’re breathing the same air.

“When I’m young, hockey all I need for make me happy. But now I’m old, I see hockey’s not last forever, and life is short, Sid, you know? Too short for live someone else’s way, someone else’s rules. Is time for new way.”

He nuzzles his nose against Sid’s temple, then against his ear.

“If you’re sure,” Sid says, and he feels Geno nod, feels Geno’s hands come up to rest on his hips.

“I’m wait so long,” he says, lips dragging along Sid’s jaw, “now, is time.”

-

On Sunday evening, Geno rings the old service buzzer at seven p.m sharp. Sid left the rolling door open, and the April sun shines into the vestibule as Sid opens his front door.

Geno has flowers in his hands, and a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Look, we back in same place for second date, where we came for first date.”

“This,” Sid insists, taking the flowers out of his hand, “is our first date. That was – something else entirely.”

He stands back to let Geno pass, turns his face up to accept the chase press of Geno’s mouth to his.

“I’m hope first date ends same way as _something else_,” Geno says against his ear, then moves on into the apartment.

Sid lets out a long breath, and hopes they can just get through dinner first.

Two days ago, standing in this apartment, Geno told him it was _time_, and Sid let himself be wrapped up in Geno’s arms let himself be kissed and groped within an inch of his life, but - .

It was a Friday morning, and Sid was late for work, and Geno already had commitments that day as well, and there just wasn’t _time_ for it to be time – not that morning, not that day.

So Sid invited Geno over for dinner on Sunday, promised he’d take the whole night off and cook him Russian food and everything, promised him an actual, legit date.

The sleepover was implied.

And now Geno’s here, in nice slacks and a green button down shirt, hair combed and flowers in hand and - .

Oh, shit, the kasha.

Sid scoots back to the kitchen to fluff the buckwheat and add in the leeks, walnuts and black currants. He’s got Oroshka to start and Kotleti made with Pike to go over the kasha with a silky-smooth beet puree, for the main. He even managed to get his hands on some _Shampanskoye. _

Geno asked him once if he’d ever made Sharlotka, and had looked crushed when Sid said he hadn’t. Apparently it was his favorite childhood dessert, so Sid even called in a favor from Daniela, asked her to find him a good recipe.

Turns out Sharlotka is just a fairly basic apple cake, dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Sid’s got one in a tin on top of the fridge, for an after-dinner treat.

Although, to be honest, Sid’s plan is that _he’s_ going to be the after-dinner treat, and maybe the cake can come after that. If all goes well, they’ll need sustenance to keep their strength up.

Sid puts the flowers in the only container he can find – an old utensil crock that’s sitting on the bottom shelf of one of his prep tables in the kitchen – and puts them on the island.

He’d considered serving this dinner on the roof, but - .

The restaurant is open upstairs, and there’s no way to get from Sid’s apartment on the bottom level up to the rooftop garden without either walking up the fire escape on the side of the building, or walking through the restaurant’s kitchen.

Neither of those seemed especially appealing for tonight, for what it means and for where they both know it’s going to go.

Sid just wants to feed Geno in the privacy of his little apartment, then keep him there for the rest of the night and well into tomorrow, thank you very much, and he doesn’t need any prying eyes or nosy passers-by watching any part of it, that’s for damn sure.

So Geno perches on a stool at the little island while Sid prepares the Oroshka. He watches intently as Sid dices boiled eggs and potatoes, cubes cucumbers, green onions, and radishes all straight from the fridge and still ice cold. He pours the sour kvass over the top, then minces fresh parsley and dill from the garden, knife moving sharp and precise, scoops the herbs onto his knife blade and deposits them into the soup bowls, followed by a big dollop of thick Russian style sour cream.

The whole preparation takes no time, but Sid still feels self-conscious with Geno watching every movement of his hands, every slice of his knife so raptly.

“What’s that look?” Sid raises an eyebrow, hands him a spoon. “See, it’s already finished. You can eat.”

He stirs his sour cream into his own soup, by way of demonstration, but Geno just shakes his head.

“All I’m think is you so good at this, is fun to watch. Also little scary, for such big knife moving so fast, but.” He shrugs, and his tongue snakes out to lick his bottom lip. “I’m already know Sid is best chef, so. Is cool to see up close.”

Sid can feel himself blushing, but he just shrugs and bumps his shoulder into Geno’s.

“Shut up and eat your soup,” he mumbles, and Geno laughs and does as he’s told.

They pop the _Shampanskoye _for the main course, and Geno gives a little toast in Russian that Sid can’t follow at all.

“What did you say?” he asks, while he’s plating the kasha over the beet puree.

“Only that I hope for same good luck in this place I have twice before,” Geno smirks, and Sid rolls his eyes while he blushes some more.

After dinner and lots of over-the-top moaning and compliments from Geno that Sid pretends to hate but actually loves, he clears the dishes, then stands on the opposite side of the island, leaning in on his elbows. It’s so much like all those nights they’ve spent upstairs, Sid on one side of the bar and Geno on the other, and yet this time it’s so, so different.

“So,” Sid says, casually as he can. “I’ve got tea, and Sharlotka for dessert.”

He watches Geno’s eyes go wide with excitement, but Sid goes on before Geno can respond.

“Or we could save those for later,” Sid says, “after.” Then he meets Geno’s gaze and holds it.

Geno’s eyes go dark and hot, and he stands up suddenly, his stool screeching against the concrete floor in his haste.

“You mean later, for after sex?” He raises an eyebrow, little smirk at the corner of his mouth, and Sid snorts. So much for subtlety.

He nods, only barely, but that’s all it takes.

“Come,” Geno growls, holding out his hand, “please.” And Sid’s blushing again just from the tone of his voice, but he goes. He steps around the island, lets Geno pull him close and hold him tight.

“So much things I’m want but never have, Sid,” Geno breathes against his neck, burying his face there, long arms wrapped all the way around Sid’s middle, squeezing him breathless.

And Sid wants to know exactly what that means, wants to ask Geno to tell him everything he’s ever wanted and never had, wants to give him those things one by one, but he knows there’ll be time for that, eventually.

“We’ll get there,” Sid assures him, “we’ll get to everything. For now, let’s start with getting naked, yeah?”

Geno growls into his neck; Sid will take that as a yes.

They separate just enough to get to buttons and buckles and zippers, just enough to be able to watch each other as they go.

The sun is setting outside, the windows glowing a purple-pink that makes everything in the apartment seem bathed in a rosy glow. Geno’s skin looks irresistible, so Sid doesn’t bother trying. He steps closer, runs a hand down Geno’s chest and over his belly, scritches his fingers through the line of hair under his navel.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, and Geno huffs, incredulous.

“I’m want everything, too much things to say. Some things I’m not even know words for in English, have to draw picture maybe.”

Sid laughs, and kisses him, because he can.

“Like I said, we’ll get to all that. Let’s keep it simple tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Geno breathes against Sid’s mouth, “please Sid, I need.”

“You wanna fuck me?” Sid asks, low, and Geno groans.

“I want you to,” Sid goes on. “So bad, Geno. I wanted it that first night, if we’d just had a little more time, if we’d actually made it inside, I would have - . Would have begged you for it.”

Geno groans again, his hands sliding down to palm Sid’s ass, to squeeze and pull him in tight at the hips, bring their erections snug up against each other.

“Yes,” Geno pants, his mouth moving over Sid’s jaw, down his neck, back up to his ear, “please, Sid, yes, want to fuck you, yes.”

It doesn’t take long, as turned on as they both are until Sid’s on all fours on the bed, spread open around Geno’s fingers.

It doesn’t take long, until he does beg.

When Geno slides into him, it’s like a key into a lock, like the last piece of a puzzle, and Sid’s not usually one for poetry or flowery sentiments, but it’s nothing like he expects, and exactly like he knew it would be, all at once.

After they lie shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the ceiling with their fingers locked together between their bodies. It’s a strange sensation, to be so totally at ease, so casually intimate with someone he’s never slept with before, but Sid supposes that’s the whole idea behind, you know, _dating_. Getting to know someone, to care for someone, before you fuck.

Sid doesn’t know anything about that, has never tried it before, but so far, this seems to be working out pretty well.

Five Stars, 10/10, would recommend.

“You know I’m go back to Russia soon,” Geno whispers in the now-dark room, and he leans over to put a kiss on Sid’s shoulder. “Is World Championships in May.”

“But you’ll be back,” Sid says, and it’s not a question. “When it’s over, and you’re done working, then you’ll come back.”

And Geno nuzzles his shoulder again, kisses him there one more time, and confirms.

“Yes, Sid,” he says, “_real_ Russian boyfriend, always come back.”

**Author's Note:**

>   
In case anyone is dying to know if I happened to spend an inordinate amount of time cruising the streets of McKees Rocks, PA on Google Earth, looking for the perfect abandoned industrial building in which to house Sid’s imaginary restaurant, indeed I did! The address is 134 Singer Avenue, McKees Rocks, PA, for any map nerds like me who’d like to take a look. And yes, the painted sign is on the front of the building, just as described in the fic. Let's hear it for completely unnecessary authenticity!
> 
> Also, basically all info about McKees Rocks is factual, in so far as Wikipedia can be relied upon to provide facts. That includes the existence and timeline of Mann’s Hotel, although obviously any and all relationship to Sid or his family is totally fabricated.
> 
> Likewise, facts about Magnitogorsk, including the 1992 study about infant and mother heath, which, wow. Yikes.
> 
> The real chef who started the restaurant on which this is based, Kevin Sousa, grew up in McKees Rocks, but unlike Chef Sid, he has spent his entire career in/around Pittsburgh. Although he opened his restaurant on the other side of the city instead of in McKees Rocks, he chose a similarly down-on-it’s-luck town, Braddock, PA. I’ve never been to Superior Motors, but it sure seems like a worthy enterprise – if you’re in Pittsburgh, hit them up!
> 
> [tumblr](https://makeit-takeit.tumblr.com/), if you're into that kind of thing!


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